Shayne Looper: Guilt gets an image makeover

Shayne Looper

Saturday

May 23, 2009 at 12:01 AMMay 23, 2009 at 11:23 PM

Been feeling guilty lately? Sigmund Freud would tell you that guilt is simply the emotional byproduct of society’s restrictions on your desires (particularly, your sexual desires). By contrast, Judaeo-Christian belief (which Freud scorned as fantasy), teaches that guilt is a consequence of sin.

Been feeling guilty lately?

Sigmund Freud would tell you that guilt is simply the emotional byproduct of society’s restrictions on your desires (particularly, your sexual desires). Guilt, according to Freud, is a merely pathological — and personally harmful — feeling that lacks any objective reality.

Freud intended to free the world from guilt, which he saw as a tool used to manipulate socially acceptable behavior. But for all his efforts, guilt has remained.

By contrast, Judaeo-Christian belief (which Freud scorned as fantasy), teaches that guilt is a consequence of sin. The presence of guilt indicates a violation of the rules of appropriate conduct in a relationship, whether between two people or between a person and God.

Freud wanted to rid the world of such nonsense. How much freer, he thought, people would be if they could cast off the binding shackles of guilt! In spite of his efforts, though, only a tiny percentage of people have succeeded.

Be thankful. There is a word for people who have realized Freud’s dream of a guiltless existence: psychopaths. Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy; these are the names of a few of those who have succeeded in freeing themselves from guilt.

Humans can never safely rid themselves of the guilt response, but I have noticed how society has engineered effective new ways to channel the guilt elsewhere.

A generation ago, people felt guilt for lying, stealing or engaging in extramarital sexual relations. These were all violations of an objective moral code found in (among other places) the Ten Commandments.

But today, whenever one hears the word “guilt” used it is almost always in connection with behaviors that have no moral content. Past generations would have found such talk incomprehensible.

I was officiating at an outdoor wedding recently, and turned on one of the morning news shows to see the weather. There was a segment on “spray tanning,” which the anchor introduced by saying something like, “Now we don’t have to feel guilty about getting a tan.”

Feel guilty about getting a tan? What would our grandparents have made of that?

If you listen closely, you’ll discover an entirely new set of (non-moral) behaviors about which society now feels guilty. First on the list: eating enjoyable food. Guilt is still appropriate when it comes as a response to eating food that will increase your waist line or your cholesterol. Then comes tobacco. If Freud were living now, even he might suffer guilt over those famous cigars he smoked.

These days it is fashionable to heap guilt on those who don’t recycle, or who buy appliances that aren’t Energy Star rated. Guilt is fitting for those who have unprotected sex (not, however, for those who have unmarried sex), and is almost obligatory for those who drive SUVs. Do you see what has happened? Because we cannot get rid of guilt without turning into monsters, or respond to guilt without turning into saints (which is just as frightening to some people), we channel our guilt into non-moral behaviors.

So now we reserve the feeling of guilt for the misuse of our bodies or the misuse of our environment. I’m not suggesting that such behaviors are morally neutral, just that they are comfortably narrow. Society has constructed an artificial watershed that drains guilt away from relational issues — especially with God — to issues that are either impersonal or merely personal, rather than interpersonal.

Whereas guilt once served a real purpose — to bring about reconciliation — today it only makes people unhappy. No doubt, Freud would be gratified to find his views corroborated.

The Daily Reporter (Coldwater, Mich.)

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